Sneak
by Chocolite.Turtle
Summary: Set in Harry's fifth year, this is from Marietta's perspective when she snitched on the DA, and how it ended up affecting her.
1. Chapter 1

**Set in Harry's fifth year, this is from Marietta's perspective when she snitched on the DA, and how it ended up affecting her. Criticism is welcomed; be brutal if necessary.  
**

"Yes. On the seventh floor." Marietta nodded slowly at the stout woman sitting across from her. "It's called the Room of Requirement."

Professor Umbridge leaned forward eagerly. "Good, good. Tell me more, dear."

Marietta bit her lip as she stared at a mounted plate with a pretty white kitten painted on it. Maybe – maybe she shouldn't snitch. Maybe she should just keep her mouth shut, like everyone else in the DA had. Maybe she should say it was all a mistake; there was no Room of Requirement – it was just a joke.

"Well, girl?" The professor looked at her impatiently. Her gaze, a few moment before cheery and encouraging, now turned sour and bordered on hostile. "I'm waiting."

She smiled apologetically. No, she couldn't not tell the truth. It would be wrong. Plus, she was endangering herself, being in a room, practicing magic, unsupervised by teachers. Not to mention, she was breaking the law by keeping quiet. Best to be the first to let Professor Umbridge know, and get a full pardon.

"I—There's a meeting, tonight, on the seventh floor." Marietta paused. "I won't get in trouble for this, will I?"

"Oh, no. Of course not. Though I may not say the same for your friends. They chose to lie." Here the Professor gave a half-giggle, and then shook her head disapprovingly. "It's their own fault, really."

Marietta nodded, not paying too close attention to the professor's tirade, her eyes focused on a plate mounted above Professor Umbridge's left ear. It contained a black kitten playing with a ball of string. She followed its movements for a while, then tired and cast around for another scene to look at. The longwinded speech was beginning to be tiresome to listen to.

The professor's office was decorated all over with plates and frills and pink, with small pieces of reflective glass scattered around like a mosaic. It gave off a pretty effect when the light hit the mirrors in the right way.

Suddenly, Marietta stopped and stared in revulsion at the thing looking back at her from the mirror. Its mouth was open, carefully outlined with lip gloss, and its curly hair wasn't standing up on end like it had blown something up instead of performing a charm. It had plain, brown eyes and a long, straight nose like her, but it wasn't her. It couldn't be her. It couldn't.

"These days, it's nearly impos-" The professor had stopped speaking, interrupted by Marietta's squeak of horror.

Marietta blinked back tears, and the thing in the mirror blinked along with her. She clapped her hand to her face, covering up the pimples that were now emblazoned across her face. She rocked back and forth slowly as a flustered Professor Umbridge pulled out her wand and started making complicated movements with it in the air, her lips moving wordlessly.

She started to cry, giving up on trying to preserve her non-waterproof mascara, as the seconds drew into minutes. The professor was getting agitated as well, whether it was by lack of results or Marietta's waterworks.

"Look, dear. Why don't you tell me more while I fix this?" The professor's tone had nothing 'dear' about it, and the question was more like a command. Still, Marietta shook her head mutely and stuffed her fist in her mouth to quell her sobs.

She pulled her robes up and buried her face in them. Her face. It had never been much to look at – but now! One jinx, and not even Professor Umbridge could set her right. The pimples were all over her face, mocking her. The little purple bumps sat on her cheeks and nose innocently enough, but oh! She knew. She _knew_. They were just waiting for her to say something more, and they'd become even brighter and bigger and swallow up her entire face. They would. Those pustules were _mocking _her, as if performing the duty for the caster, since they obviously wouldn't show their face now. Oh, if they did… They deserved everything she wanted to do to the things on her face, and more.

It wasn't _fair_! Here she was, stepping forward and telling the truth and informing the ministry, and she was punished for it? The ministry was law and order and all things good. If it wasn't, her mother wouldn't be helping monitor the fires for the Minister. So for helping officials catch lawbreakers, she was jinxed with _this_? She broke out into fresh sobs, wiping her wet, disgusting face on her robes.

"I don't have time for this." Professor Umbridge spoke sharply, and Marietta bit back the urge to retort. What about her? The professor wasn't the one who had been jinxed. "I need to get to the seventh floor. Please, go back to your common room."

Marietta looked at the teacher, dismayed. Go out in public? When there was snot all down the front of her robes, mascara running down her cheeks, and SNEAK written on her face for all the world to see? Was the woman insane?

Professor Umbridge must have noticed her incredulous expression, because she hastily added "-and I'll have someone fetch you later so we can fix that." She turned around, dismissing Marietta with a wave of a slightly pudgy hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**About a week after Professor Umbridge declares herself headmistress:**

Marietta stared at her reflection in the mirror, her knuckles turning white from the pressure she was exerting on her wand. The stupid pimples just would be charmed off. She had searched and searched for hours in the library, and hadn't found a single cure. It was just so infuriating that it was a Gryffindor who had cast the spell, and not a fellow Ravenclaw. She deserved better. Humiliated by a Gryffindor had never been on her To Do list. _Humiliated_ had never been on her To Do list. And now, she was finally embarrassed by a _Gryffindor_? It had to be a cruel joke. There was no way someone could cast a jinx like that and not be in Ravenclaw.

Everything was wrong. Her mother was speaking to her again, but in a distant way. Marietta could almost see the revulsion etched into her face, but it always disappeared a second before she caught it. And though she hated to admit it, it hurt. It hurt to have her own mother be ashamed of her. It hurt to have her mother ashamed that Marietta had been good and done what she had asked. It hurt to have her friends turn away and not make eye contact when they were speaking to her.

Oh, God. Her friends. Ever since the Incident, they hadn't been as close. Even Cho had started to avoid her. They still did the same things, but it was different. Sure, they all showed up and talked to her, but Marietta could tell. They didn't like being friends with someone who had SNEAK written on their face. They didn't like been seen with someone who had SNEAK written on their face. They didn't like anyone who had SNEAK written on their face. Period.

She pressed her lips together, trying to suppress her tears. She was crying often, now. Marietta didn't know why half the time. The tears just came out. One minute, she was sitting over an essay, and the next, she had to start over from all the water droplets over the parchment. She had gotten a huge hand cramp from writing out everything so many times. Who knew tears could blur ink so badly?

It just wasn't _fair._ She had to be the only girl in the fifth year who didn't wear mascara. The stupid stuff wasn't waterproof, and she didn't have enough for the tube she had seen in a copy of her mother's _Witch Weekly_ that would be able to hold up against her eyes.

Marietta hadn't been wearing much makeup lately. What was the point? She was hideous anyway. Before, she wasn't pretty, but she hadn't been this bad. She had never had a huge problem with acne before, and her features, while plain, weren't horribly disfigured. She had never bothered with any of that tan stuff girls smeared over their faces – she actually liked her freckles. Plus, it felt like she was choking her pores when she slapped that stuff all over her face. And after she had bought that large box of chocolate frogs, well, her pocket couldn't quite stretch to make room for the changes in makeup she needed.

She couldn't quite remember the meeting in the former headmaster's office; it was all a bit murky. Marietta supposed it was because she was so upset over her new face. The initial shock had faded, and she was able to look at herself without flinching, but she was able to hate her appearance in a more coherent manner instead of just sobbing uncontrollably and denying the face in the mirror was her.

Marietta sighed. She couldn't recall much, her face being in her robes and her mind being hysterical. But the Minister had yelped when he had seen her face. God, she had wanted a hole to open up and swallow her then. With the luck she was having, it probably would have. The Minister had composed himself, but she could almost envision the look of abhorrence he was hiding just beneath the skin.

But Professor Umbridge had smoothed it over. Of course, she certainly wasn't smooth a few minutes later. Marietta had noticed she sounded enraged, almost. This part was slightly fuzzy. Some sort of escape on Professor Dumbledore's part. The Minister had been angry, and people had rushed off. It was all very vague, except for the hand. She had seen Harry's hand in the office. "I must not tell lies," it had said. She had no idea how it had gotten there, but it was strangely ironic. The one who had been breaking the law had that on his hand, and she had "SNEAK" on her face for maintaining the law? It just wasn't _fair._ She bet he didn't have people shooting snide comments and laughing at him behind his back because he had something on his hand.

Marietta wiped her face on the front of her robe. It was still damp from a previous waterworks display earlier that day during breakfast. She had just run in to get few slices of toast, but of course, she just had to run into Warrington, who was all to happy to give her a few words of advice on how to best hide her face in a very public fashion so every non-deaf person in the near vicinity heard.

Marietta sniffed loudly. It was a beautiful Sunday, and she was holed up in her dormitory hiding from all the people outside. Because she did the right thing and told the authorities some students were disobeying the rules. God, it wasn't _fair._


End file.
